Characteristics of voluntary sports clubs with targeted initiatives for underrepresented population groups: The role of organisational goals, resources, structure and context

Elmose-Østerlund, Karsten; Feiler, Svenja; Breuer, Christoph; Adler Zwahlen, Jenny; Nagel, Siegfried (2022). Characteristics of voluntary sports clubs with targeted initiatives for underrepresented population groups: The role of organisational goals, resources, structure and context. Scandinavian sport studies forum, 13, pp. 29-55. Malmö University

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Even though voluntary sports clubs are expected to play an important role in accom-
plishing the political goal to deliver ‘sport for all’, a number of population groups re-
main underrepresented in organised sport. Considering this, the aim of this article is to
identify organisational characteristics of sports clubs that work strategically to integrate
underrepresented population groups by offering targeted initiatives. Logistic regression
analyses were conducted using survey data from more than 30,000 sports clubs in nine
European countries. Factors within all the four included aspects of organisational char-
acteristics (goals, resources, structure and context) were found to be relevant for the
implementation of targeted initiatives. The results also revealed that it was mainly the
same factors that were significantly correlated with the propensity of clubs to offer tar-
geted initiatives across all three examined population groups: people with disabilities,
people with a migration or ethnic minority background, and people on a low income.
In particular, the existence of integration-related goals and service-oriented goals regard-
ing long-term planning (organisational goals) as well as paid staff and paid management
(organisational resources) were positively correlated with the presence of targeted ini-
tiatives. Regarding organisational characteristics and context, large, young, multisport
clubs located in an urban setting were found to be more inclined to offer targeted ini-
tiatives. Having identified a number of club-related factors relevant for the presence of
targeted initiatives, our study can inform policy implementation that seek to increase
participation of underrepresented population groups in organised sport.

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